Israel only seeks extermination of Palestinians: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Joe Catron, a member of the International Solidarity Movement in New York, about a leading Israeli rights group saying it has lost all faith in the regime's military justice system, saying it virtually legitimizes crimes by Israeli forces.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How stacked are Israeli courts against Palestinians? And do you feel this report of injustice stops at just hate crimes?

Catron: Well I think the numbers speak for themselves. We have just heard about the overwhelming impunity for Zionist crimes against Palestinians or perhaps I should say the crimes of individual Zionists against Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Israeli military courts in the West Bank have an overwhelming conviction rate of 99.74 percent against Palestinian defendants and those are the ones who are put on trial. Additionally, 700 Palestinians are held without any charge or trial at all.

Clearly this is a system which is designed for the benefit of one population and the detriment of another. Israel’s failure to even indict much less convict individual Zionist attackers for their crimes, many of them horrific against Palestinians is a reflection of its own structural nature.

In 2014 when I was in the Gaza Strip the state itself massacred 2,200 Palestinians, entire families were wiped out in their homes, schools, mosques and hospitals were destroyed and this in itself is simply a reflection of the foundations of the Zionist state, the Nakba or catastrophe during which over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes starting in December 1947. I certainly do not mean to make light of the crimes of individual Zionists, many of them are unspeakable, but they are simply reflections, in many cases minor ones of the overwhelming racist orientation of the colonial settler state-building project of which they are part.

Press TV: Now if Palestinians cannot get protection from the Israeli judicial system, what’s their next avenue for recourse?

Catron: Well that is a question that has a number of answers. Palestinians are pursuing a number of avenues. One is the International Criminal Court which the state of Palestine has now joined. An investigation of Israeli crimes is underway; the outcome of that process of course remains to be seen. Additionally, Palestinians are pursuing a number of popular options to leverage their support around the world, to attach real consequences to the many crimes against them, both by individual Zionists and by the Zionist regime in Tel Aviv.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) is enjoying increasing gains. Recently the world’s largest security company and second biggest private employer G4S announced that it was severing its ties to the Israeli prison service and Israeli occupation forces withdrawing from the country altogether. This comes after a number of similar successes and these gains continue to mount. So Palestinians are pursuing countless grievances they have against Israel on a number of fronts.

Press TV: If a Palestinian carried out any kind of crime against an Israeli, we have seen the punishments have been swift and severe, not to mention like you just mentioned the amount of Palestinians how indefinitely in Israeli jails without charge or trial. Why hasn’t Israel's ally Washington or the international community pushed Tel Aviv to be more just with Palestinians and offer them due process and protection in the judicial system?

Catron: Well certainly if a Palestinian is even alleged to have attacked or considered attacking an Israeli, the penalty is likely to be summary execution in the streets. This is something we have seen many times since October when a new Palestinian uprising began.

Over the course of that uprising, Washington DC has stood steadfastly with Israel, has remained silent in the face of its overwhelming and escalating crimes against Palestinians and this results from a number of factors, one of which is certainly the large pro-Israel or Zionist lobby in the United States which has worked over decades to make it unthinkable for any elected official to publicly oppose Israel or even the most extreme Israeli crimes.

This is the hegemony they have managed to carve out for themselves, it is something that is starting to crack or beginning to see it not being maintained as absolutely as it once was. Letters are being drafted by Congressmen protesting Israel’s crimes against detained Palestinian children, a major presidential candidate Bernie sanders is appointing supporters of Palestine to the Democratic platform committee, so we are starting to see the failure of absolute support for Israel among the political class in this country but it is a long, slow and difficult process.  

Press TV: Can Israel claim that it is interested in peace with Palestinians when the latter is denied the most fundamental of protections in Israeli courts?

Catron: Absolutely not. Israeli courts are a farce, Palestinians are convicted, Israelis are rarely indicted, much less sentenced to prison, in the rare event than an Israeli is charged or convicted, they will spend a very minimal term compared to any Palestinian facing similar allegations.

Israel’s push for renewed negotiations with the PLO is simply a ruse to give it diplomatic cover for expanded settlement construction. This is a process we have seen time and time again when these parties go to the negotiating table, the construction of illegal settlements under Israeli patronage simply explodes in the West Bank.

Israel has no interest in anything except the extermination of Palestinian existence and the seizure of Palestinian land. That is the ultimate outcome of all their designs from attacks by individual settlers illegally occupying the West Bank under its state auspices to attempts to win diplomatic cover for settlement expansion.

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